Hot Laps (9 page)

And then, as if I needed a reason to actually fall for this guy, he began the most
erotic engine talk I’d ever heard in my life.

“Once the crankshaft is in the magnaflux machine, we soak it with a special fluid.”
He turned slightly lifting a hose to the left of the machine where we were now standing,
and sprayed it over the crankshaft.

I wasn’t even sure what a crankshaft was but I was assuming it was the long part in
the machine that had all these lobes on it.

“After it’s been sprayed, it’s then energized by the machine.” His eyebrows waggled
as he picked up a light beside the machine. “Then you look over it with the ultraviolet
light,”
he whispered as he got a little closer. His mouth was terrifyingly close to my ear.
“If there’s a crack, you’ll see it shining.”

Looking at me intently, as if he wanted to say more, his smile grew wider to the point
I thought he was going to burst out laughing. And it wouldn’t have surprised me one
bit.

My eyes glanced figuratively around the shop to see if anyone was watching this. No
one appeared in sight and believe me when I say I was moments away from just taking
this engine builder against this machine. I wouldn’t care who saw.

Backing up a foot, I tried to move away myself.

Another chuckle escaped Casten when I touched him, he leaned closer, his breath moving
over me. “What’s the matter, can’t take it?”

At this point, I had to physically hold myself back so that I wouldn’t lay myself
over this goddamn machine and have him check me for cracks.

He stared down at me, waiting.

I swallowed as though I was swallowing sand and maybe even panting a little. The sound
was just as wretched as what just happened to me. I felt like a teenage boy who just
got a boner in class and wasn’t sure what to do with it.

This never happened to me. I always had a reply, or at least, a gesture. But since
I’d met Casten Riley, I’d fallen down stairs, face planted in a restaurant and was
now rendered speechless. Consciously, because I was confused, I moved away creating
a foot of charged air between us.

He wasn’t having it.

Casten leaned forward so his chest pressed against my shoulder.

“Why you so quiet all of a sudden?” he inquired, his voice low and husky, his hand
rose to wipe his forearm across his forehead. “You thinking about
me
doing some magnufluxing on
you
, aren’t you? I would do a thorough job. I assure you.”

Not sure what I should do with my hands, I pressed my fingers to my collarbone, my
skin feeling warm under his gaze. I watched as his eyes followed my hand, his gaze
further heating me with the intensity of his expression.

Stepping back, and then away as if I was going to walk away, I turned my head in his
direction. He was looking at my ass. It looked fairly damn good in these jeans so
I really couldn’t blame him for eye fucking it.

“I was more or less hoping you could just give me a
meticulous
inspection.” I whispered, as his eyes jerked back to mine in surprise.

I smiled a shy but coy smile and moved away again, leaving him grinning back at me.

“You’re playing with fire, honey,” he rasped, staring at me with rapt attention, focusing
on my lips. “I’m very
meticulous
when I inspect an engine.
Very
.”

I smiled right back at his cocky dirty talking ass and replied with poise. “How about
that order? Should I put assembly lube on it or something?”

I knew a little about engines from my uncle and my time spent at the track. Enough
to get me in trouble and I saw assembly lube on the previous order so I went with
that.

Casten let out this deep adorable chuckle and looked up at me as taking off his gloves
and tossed them into a garbage can next to his toolbox.

“Baby,” he drawled out, “I don’t think
we
would need assembly lube.” He was standing right in front of me again, his gaze penetrating
my very being as well as his heavy breath. “I’m confident you’re fully lubricated
for any friction that might take place inside your block.”

Oh my. Breathe, Hayden. Just breathe in and out.

I must have stood in Casten’s stall, him staring at me, me staring at him for close
to a minute before Charlie came over.

“Casten, I need you to look—”

He immediately stopped what he was going to say and glared at the two of us.

I wanted to act like a child and kick him in the shin for interrupting, but didn’t.
I decided that wouldn’t be real mature of me and also, I wasn’t sure I could move
without collapsing into a puddle or blurting out the words “Fuck me senseless!” to
Casten.

I didn’t say anything because there was literally no oxygen going to my brain right
then.

“What’s going on over here?” Charlie asked, his expression fierce as his dark eyebrows
drew together.

“She’s doing the ordering, what does it look like?” Casten replied eyeing Charlie
as though he could care less what he thought of our current proximity. I was practically
humping his leg and he was dangerously close giving me that magnuflux inspection he
spoke of.

The attraction I was showing toward Casten, and Charlie noticed now, couldn’t have
looked much more obvious.

“Well … do you have to stand so close to each other?” Charlie asked doing his own
scrutinizing of Casten.

Although they were cousins, it didn’t seem to faze these two one bit. I was starting
to get the impression they didn’t exactly get along.

“Did you finish installing those piston rings?” Casten asked arching an eyebrow at
Charlie.

Piston rings? That sounds dirty! And very interesting.

Casten then stepped back from me and reached in front of me for a binder on top of
his toolbox.

“Yeah,” Charlie answered in a slightly more irritated tone, shrugging his shoulders.

You could identify right away he hated taking orders from Casten but I had a feeling
he was used to it.

“Well then, that one there,” Casten gestured across the shop to a machine lined up
against the wall, “needs a sonic test done. I’ve already bored the heads.”

Charlie grumbled something but didn’t say anymore. “I’m watching you two.”

“Stay out of my business, Charlie.” I said with a certainty I was quite proud of.
“We can make my own decisions.”

It case my
we
comments wasn’t clear, I was speaking about myself and acting as the verbal advocate
for my vagina. She could make her own decisions too, though some are questionable,
she makes them alright.

“Yes” Charlie turned to walk away, “clearly you’ve made some good ones in the past.”
He remarked over his shoulder, glaring at Noah, and then trudged toward the machine
to do his sonic test, whatever that was.

I was suddenly curious as to what that test was and no longer focused on Charlie’s
rudeness. Maybe it was just as erotic as the magnuflux thing and Casten could enlighten
me some more.

“What’s a sonic test?” I asked pretending to be shy.

Please be something incredibly fucking dirty!

Once again, Casten’s warm eyes darted to mine from the binder of parts catalogs he
was holding. He grinned with an adorable nod. “Don’t get me started on that. We have
ordering to do.”

He had no idea what he’s doing to me. No idea at all.

Just as I was about to push this dirty talking engine builder into a parts room and
show him just how badly I wanted to get things started, Olivia showed up.

“Is the ordering done?” She asked hesitantly, turning to glance at Charlie who was
watching all this go down as he dropped a tool on the concrete.

Casten chuckled. “Yeah, we’ve got it covered, Olivia.”

“Oh, well I’m heading to lunch so I needed Hayden to answer the phones.”

Shit, how the hell am I going to answer phones like this?

I need a fucking cigarette and a nap for God’s sake. This took more out of me then
the last time I had sex and that lasted two fucking minutes so that’s not saying much
about that encounter.

Or is that not saying much about this? Clearly I’m too confused to make sense.

Casten and I didn’t get to say any more, he did offer me another wink along with an
adorable grin.

When I got back to my desk, Jameson wasn’t in his office, thankfully, so I checked
my phone.

Anna sent me a text telling me there was a party tonight she was invited to and wanted
me to come. Naturally I agreed. We were both too young for the bars so house parties
still held appeal to us.

Jameson came back in the office and I watched him move around the office, talking
with Bailey and then he went downstairs to the shop.

He was down there for about an hour and then came back up, smiling at me with his
phone in hand.

Just as he was going to say something to me, his phone vibrated in his hand drawing
his attention downward.

That drew mine there as well and I was thankful for that partition or else my eye-line
would have been directly on his junk.

There was one thing I knew about working, don’t eye your boss’ junk. It’s probably
among the top do not’s of office rules, if there were office rules for such things.

Although, after working here a week, these people didn’t believe in fucking rules
anyways.

“So how are you liking it here?”

Olivia, who sat right next to me, spoke for me. “She was just downstairs talking dirty
with your son. I’d say she enjoys it.”

“Olivia!” I flung my stapler right at her head smacking her in the cheek.

Her hand rose to rub the spot, glaring in my direction. “Was that fucking necessary?”

“Yes.”

Jameson chuckled. “If
my son
invites you to a party tonight, say no.”

I gave him a frightful nod, though I couldn’t make any promises.

“So you’re enjoying yourself here … Hayden? Tate was asking me this morning.”

“I love it here!”

Jesus. Hold back a little.

Jameson smiled, his lips curving into the same smile his son had. “That’s good.”

This wasn’t working out for me. I couldn’t concentrate at all. I really hoped they
didn’t expect much out of me the rest of the day. This ordering shit took everything
out of me. That and you add Jameson and his son. Fucked my day all up.

My eyes went to Jameson’s black polo with the embroidered words JAR Engines sprawled
across the left pec.

I bet that’s one nice pec, too, I thought to myself.

Stop it. He could be your dad.

But your hot ass son isn’t!
Was my next concerning thought.

Immediately I started imagining Casten smacking my ass and asking me to scream, “Who’s
your daddy?” while he bent me over that engine hoist in his bay.

Oh yeah, that’s one good fucking image right there.

I really shouldn’t think of the boss man’s son this way, and nor should I go dick
diving in the company pool. It’s more than likely frowned upon for their “code of
conduct.” Just like my vagina, they needed to be more careful about who they allowed
entrance to. Now they had a nineteen-year-old drunk, slightly slutty snarky girl whose
parents weren’t sure whether to help her find a nice young man or send her to rehab.

Just so you know, they are leaning toward rehab.

“Well, I’m leaving tonight for the California. I’ll see you in a couple weeks.”

“Oh right, you guys are on the west coast swing, right?”

“Yep.” He looked at his phone. “I gotta meet Sway in an hour.”

“Good luck.” It was all I could think to say.

What else was I going to say? Maybe something along the lines of: “Hey, do you mind
if I have sex with your son while you’re gone?”

He tipped his head and winked and reached in his pocket.

Oh shit, did I say that out loud?

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Just as I was about to say something else, maybe apologize, Jameson handed me a box
knife. “By the way, you’re gonna need this.”

“Why?”

Was he aiding in my suicide or something? What boss hands their employee a box knife,
besides to open a box? I looked around, there were no boxes.

Jameson let out a laugh, rubbing his forehead. “The boys at JAR Racing wrapped your
car in Saran wrap,” he shrugged, standing. “It’s what they like to call a welcoming
gift.”

That’s why those bastards were smiling so much.

Looking over my shoulder out the window, sure enough, those assholes wrapped my entire
car in Saran wrap, “How’d they get that much Saran wrap?”

“They have a healthy stock of it,” Jameson said over his shoulder before leaving.

One thing was for sure. I was going to need to think of ways to get these JAR Racing
boys back.

After Jameson left, I nearly got in a fist fight with the printer over a paper jam.

Then there was the copy machine that had me questioning my sanity when I had a full-blown
conversation with it and its racialism. “Why the fuck did you just chose to copy six
of the twenty documents? Are you racist? Or maybe just plain stupid?”

The piece of shit Canon copy machine had no reply.

I may or may not have kicked the goddamn thing too. It really was a stupid machine.

Bailey smiled when she walked into the copy machine and saw me pointing my finger
it. “Wow, easy there tiger, it’s just a machine.”

“Yeah well, it randomly stapled my papers. I don’t have time for random.”

“Noted. You in a hurry or something?”

She was making fun of me. I knew it.

Rolling my eyes at her, I walked back out to my cubicle and plopped down as though
I’d just ran a marathon. Really I did though when you really think about it, just
not in the same sense. It’d been a boisterous day.

I sent a few emails out, to which those intended individuals then called me.